Angela Davis is No Human Rights Activist
by
John J. Dunphy
(Originally published in the 1.16.19 edition of The Telegraph of Alton, IL)
Many Americans today will have to Google Angela Davis just to learn who she is.
For Baby Boomers such as myself, however, Davis symbolized the political radicalism of the 1960s and early 1970s. As a professor at the University of California and member of the Communist party, Davis was outspoken in her condemnation of racism and publicly characterized police officers as “pigs.” Such bluntness didn’t sit well with the university’s Board of Regents, who dismissed Davis from the faculty in 1970.
Davis became a media sensation later that year when she purchased firearms that were used by Jonathan Jackson in a California courtroom, where the presiding judge and several others were taken hostage. Jackson intended to use the hostages to secure the release of the “Soledad Brothers” from prison. During the ensuing shoot-out, four people were killed, including the judge and Jackson, who was the kid brother of Soledad Brother George Jackson.
Davis became a fugitive but was eventually captured and brought to trial, where she pleaded not-guilty. She became a cause célèbre. The Rolling Stones’ “Sweet Black Angel” and John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s “Angela” were dedicated to Davis. On June 4, 1972, an all-white jury found her not guilty.
Once again, Davis is back in the news. The Birmingham (AL) Civil Rights Institute announced last year that Davis would receive “the prestigious Fred Shuttlesworth Human Rights Award at its annual gala in February 2019.” However, the institute recently released a statement announcing that “supporters and other concerned individuals…..began to make requests that we reconsider our decision.” The organization’s board decided not to bestow this award on Davis.
Many Leftists are livid. They’re convinced that the American Jewish community lobbied the institute to deny Davis this award because of her support for the Palestinians and the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel. The institute stated in its press release, “Upon closer examination of Ms. Davis’ statements and public record, we concluded that she unfortunately does not meet all the criteria on which the award is based.”
I couldn’t agree more.
Davis’ decades of membership in the Communist Party, USA disqualify her for any kind of “human rights award.” One can be a member of the CPUSA or a human rights activist — but not both. She was a member of the party when it was nothing more than a puppet of the old Soviet Union. Davis consistently took the United States to task for human rights abuses but said nothing about the oppression and persecution perpetrated by the governments of the USSR and its East European satellites.
When asked to voice her opposition to the imprisonment of dissidents in the Soviet Union, Davis responded, “They are all Zionist fascists and opponents of socialism.” While in East Germany to receive an award as well as an honorary degree, she visited the Berlin Wall. Davis said nothing about the East Berliners who had been gunned down while trying to escape to the West.
Davis’ support for cult leader and mass murderer Jim Jones further disqualifies her for a human rights award. On September 10, 1977, Davis addressed Jones and his followers in Guyana via a radio phone-patch. Davis said she was “very deeply obligated to you for what you have done to further the fight for justice, to further the struggle against oppression, to further the fight against racism.” She told Jones and his cult members that critics attacked them “because of your progressive stand.”
Davis also said that there was “a very profound conspiracy to destroy the contributions which you have made to our struggle.” That was hardly what the paranoid Jones needed to hear. On November 18, 1978, Jones orchestrated the mass suicide of over 900 of his followers by drinking a cyanide-laced powdered-drink mix.
Angela Davis doesn’t deserve a human rights award. Again and again, she sided with the oppressor rather than the oppressed.
Note: Since this column was written and published, the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute has to decided to honor Davis with this award after all. I stand by the case I made in this column. Angela Davis isn’t a civil rights activist. For much of her public career, she was a supporter of and apologist for tyrannical regimes.
John J. Dunphy’s latest book, “Unsung Heroes of the Dachau Trials,” includes interviews with veterans of the U.S. Army 7708 War Crimes Group, who apprehended and prosecuted Nazi war criminals after World War II.